Chinese Water Torture - A Seafoam Recipe

"mcseanerson" (mcseanerson)
06/06/2014 at 15:07 • Filed to: None

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! is the recipe. Works on Volvos and Miatas so it must be legit.

DISCUSSION (15)

All Motor Is Best Motor > mcseanerson
06/06/2014 at 15:15

Sounds like a load of BS if you ask me.

Mattbob > mcseanerson
06/06/2014 at 15:17

why in gods name would you run water through? Also, to shut the car off, he recommends pulling the battery terminal???? Why not just turn the key off? This is some shady stuff. Just use the directions on the seafoam bottle.

mcseanerson > Mattbob
06/06/2014 at 15:18

I've done this just by letting it stall in the seafoam mix. This works great actually.

Nibbles > mcseanerson
06/06/2014 at 15:20

When I'm done seafoaming I usually stall it out with the juice too. Not because I want to, but I usually just slip and choke it

(there is so much room for innuendo in this post)

Will with a W8 races an E30 > Mattbob
06/06/2014 at 15:22

It actually steam cleans the combustion chambers, no joke. When I was in combustion research this is how we would clean the single cylinder research engines between runs to ensure repeatability. It was especially useful after any test that ran rich and created a lot of carbon buildup. No seafoam, just a quart of distilled water through a small tube attached to the vacuum line. Cleaned the carbon out beautifully.

puddler > mcseanerson
06/06/2014 at 15:22

i ran a cup of water through my furd's 351. there were huge chucks of carbon falling out of the y-pipe. so, to the porscherolltamer guy thats wanting to do this, you might wanna disconnect any catalytic converters or mufflers for this. also makes it more fun if you do this shirtless with a mullet wig.

Mattbob > mcseanerson
06/06/2014 at 15:24

but why use the water? What benefit could running water in your engine have? Water isn't a solvent for ANYTHING in your engine. Just do it with just seafoam. I've used seafoam in my cars, and yeah it works great, but this water business is just idiocy.

Mattbob > Will with a W8 races an E30
06/06/2014 at 15:27

It sounds like you have experience, but I am still somewhat skeptical of this. Seems like it wouldn't turn to steam that fast, or that immediately. I could see some people hydrolocking engines by feeding water in too fast.

JawzX2, Boost Addict. 1.6t, 2.7tt, 4.2t > Mattbob
06/06/2014 at 15:29

Steam cleaning. It DOES remove carbon deposits... but with a catalytic converter think about where those deposits stop...

mcseanerson > puddler
06/06/2014 at 15:31

oh yeah, good way to piss off the neighbors. Luckily I did it at the in laws and we all hate their neighbors.

davedave1111 > Mattbob
06/06/2014 at 15:31

When you're dealing with people who'll pay 10 bucks a pop for diesel mixed with naphtha and isoprop, then ignore the manufacturer's claims (because those are obviously bullshit) in order to pump the stuff in through a vacuum hose, I can't see why you'd be surprised by this.

mcseanerson > Mattbob
06/06/2014 at 15:34

You move the line back and forth from air to the mix. You also have someone give it a little gas while you're doing this. The throttle will surge a bit. All this being said I did it to a Ford Aspire and I didn't care too much how it ended up. In my experience it worked amazingly well.

Will with a W8 races an E30 > Mattbob
06/06/2014 at 15:49

Its small quantities of water, and a very hot engine, so it has no problem turning to steam.

I agree with you that water is usually a poor solvent for carbon. I don't know how it actually works, but my theory is that it works by exfoliation - the carbon deposits are heated by combustion and the hot cylinder head behind them, and then locally very rapidly cooled by contact with a water droplet. The area contacted by the droplet cools and shrinks, while the surrounding area stays warm. The carbon deposit is hard and brittle, so the local shrinkage causes it to crack. Warm and cool it a few more times, and the crack grows, and the deposit begins to flake away. With enough droplets over enough time, the entire chamber is cleaned of all hard deposits.

Keep in mind this process takes ~20 minutes to suck down a quart, so risk of hydrolocking is minimal unless you do something really stupid like stick a hose in the carburetor.

JawzX2, Boost Addict. 1.6t, 2.7tt, 4.2t > Mattbob
06/06/2014 at 15:51

Hence the recommendations to do it on a HOT engine, and a little at a time. Letting it only suck as much as a small vacuum line can snarf up is pretty safe if you're not an idiot about it and the engine is full hot.

Philbert/Phartnagle > Will with a W8 races an E30
06/07/2014 at 16:14

Yep, a mechanic taught me this trick over 20 years ago and it works great for cleaning the carbon out of the combustion chamber and off of the piston tops.